If you've been following me long enough then surely you remember my post on ignosticism, the belief system that says that the term God is meaningless. Personally, I don't think that I did the concept justice but I was young at the time and felt that the idea needed to be out there so others can know about it (plus it got me featured in the Skeptics' Circle so it wasn't all bad.

I wanted to revisit the idea because it occurred to me that it's not just the term "God" that is meaningless but there are many other theological terms that are equally nonsensical or under-defined.

Take for instance "heaven" and "hell". I believe that the current definitions for the two are "spending eternity in God's presence" and "spending eternity separated from God" respectively. (YMMV, since some have an idea of heaven that includes pearly gates, fluffy clouds, and streets of gold while hell is either fire and brimstone or a cold grave.) Notice that both of definition are dependent on the concept of God, which we've already said is undefined.

Another fuzzy term is "sin". Sin is typically considered "an action or thought that goes against God's Will". But how can we know what is God's will if we don't even know who he is? At this point we are all just guessing about what he wants.

To give you an example of the effect all of these ill-defined terms have on theology discussions I will take a paragraph that I was recently able to provoke over at Yahoo Answers. God is now "Lof". Heaven is now "Nevel". Hell is now "Nimm". Sin is now "wub".

Nimm is a place of eternal separation from Lof, and people go there when they die because they chose to separate themselves from Lof while living on earth. Lof created us with a free will to make our own choices and separating ourselves from Lof is one of the choices we are free to make. Our free will is a wonderful gift from Lof in that he does not force us to love Him or to follow him. With out our free will, we would be nothing but puppets or robots, which does not please Lof, and certainly does nothing to better our lives. While Lof desires that everyone would choose to love him, many people will choose not to. These people will die in their wubs and be separated from Lof forever in hell. Man from the beginning has Lof’s law written in his heart, and has the power to obey it, and yet was capable of disobeying, being left to the freedom of his own will. Man was created with holy character prompting him to holy actions; but man was fallible, and did fall from his integrity. Many would say that this is unfair, and that a loving Lof would never set up a system such as this; it is precisely God’s love for us, and the fact that He is perfectly just, that tells why nimm exists, and why men and women will choose to go there. Lof loves us so much that He respects our freedom of choice. If we choose not to love Him, then why would He want us to live with Him eternally in Nevel? Wouldn’t living for eternity with someone we don’t love be a kind of nimm any way? Lof wants to spare those people who don’t love Him from having to live with Him and be under His rule for eternity.

Clear as mud, isn't it? I don't know how that could possibly make sense no matter what words you put in the place of God or hell. Add to it all of the mental wankery that is "free will" and that paragraph isn't even worth reading. This is why I see most of theology a waste of time. It's nonsense talk to give comfort to the ignorant masses.

Hey, look at that. I'm still alive. Yes, I've managed to move all of my belongings roughly two blocks to the west and didn't kill myself. I did learn several things in the last week and a half:

1) I have entirely too much shit. I actually long for the days when I didn't have as much shit. Almost exactly seven years ago I managed to fit all of my possessions (minus a futon to sleep on) into my 1989 Buick Skylark. I lost count of how many trips it took me to move my current collection of shit. Granted, not all of it was mine since my wife and daughter had to move their belongings too. I'm still saddened by how many possessions I have. Is that weird? It's almost un-American to say something like that. Most of my shit consists of half-read books and clothes I never wear anymore. I was able to get rid of some of my shit but I still feel like I have too much weighing me down.

2) During the move I was without both cable and internet for roughly 5 days. This was mostly due to bad planning on my part and not some horrible service on the part of the cable company. It was during this time that I discovered that I have an addiction to the internet. And I'm not talking about "Tee hee, I really like the internet". I seriously have an addiction problem when it comes to the internet. I have a bad problem of obsessing about it. Regularly I would wake up, check my e-mail, read about 50-60 blog posts per day, neurotically read every single post made on the forums that I frequent, surf YouTube for a bit, watch the Twitter and Facebook feeds constantly scroll past, reload Yahoo Answers for hours at a time. The internet was no longer a form of entertainment, it was a job. I am not exaggerating when I say that I spent more than 8 hours a day on the internet. Along the way I lost who I was. My personality was gone, replaced by a tangled strand of wires and cables.

Having those 5 days away from the internet did a good job of helping me put my life into perspective. The internet used to be just a fun pastime for me and I need to get back to that. I'm not going to leave the internet, I'm just going to prioritize my time better. I don't know yet if that means more or less blog posts from me. Wait and see.

3) On a lighter note, while I was sans cable and internet I took the time to finally watch "The Men Who Stare at Goats". If you haven't heard of it, it's based off of the Jon Ronson book of the same name and stars George Clooney, Ewan McGregor and Jeff Bridges. It's mostly about the US Army's attempts to research New Age concepts and the paranormal and adapt them for combat use. Great movie. I don't have time to do a full review since I've already sent the DVD back in it's little red envelope but I'll tell you that you need to go see it now. It touches on a lot of skeptical and Discordian themes throughout the movie. George Clooney's line, "There are different ways of looking at reality," is one of the most succinct definitions of Discoridanism I've ever heard. Plus the army officer attempting to run through a wall at the very beginning of the film is a perfect visualization of The Barstool Experiment.

I said all of that to say that that site completely changed my mind on what is the Greatest Rock Song in history. If you had asked me before last week I would have said Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love" hands down. It has the best ensemble performance in rock. Robert Plant screeching his lungs out, Jimmy Page belting out one of the best guitar solos ever, John Paul Jones laying down some super phat bass lines and John Bonham hitting the shit out of his skins.

But then... I was forced to reconsider another arena rock song from another British band from the same era: "Won't Get Fooled Again" by The Who. It's one of those songs that I've heard a million times without actually listening to it. It's become very cliche over the last couple of decades with classic rock stations playing it a minimum of twice a day, plus it's the theme song of CSI: Miami and loved deeply by any political commentator who has become disillusion by demagoguery. But there is still something about cranking it up as loud as you can handle and screaming along with Roger Daltrey's opening notes.

I hate admitting it but it is better than "Whole Lotta Love". Daltrey's singing is better, Townsend's guitar is better (and he pulls double duty by playing one of the best syth solos ever), John Entwistle plays his bass like a god and Keith Moon is fucking Keith Moon. If you don't believe me check out the version from The Kids are Alright:

Pure brilliance.

5) And finally I learned that sleep is for the weak. For some god awful reason my work decided that everyone on second shift (including me) should completely rearrange their lives and start working third shift. So the good news is I'm now working 9 to 5, the bad news is that it's the wrong 9 to 5. Doing this on top of moving has made this one of the most stressful weeks of my life. The fact that I'm still able to make complete sentences is a small miracle.

So with that I am off to bed. I'll try to get back on a regular blogging pattern as soon as I can. Don't miss me too much. Good morning and Hail Eris!